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Yates: Early goal was pivotal

Cheltenham manager Mark Yates admitted conceding early was pivotal in his side's 4-2 defeat to Torquay.

Last Updated: 21/09/13 8:32pm

Cheltenham manager Mark Yates admitted conceding early was pivotal in his side's 4-2 defeat to Torquay.

Callum Ball converted a Jordan Chapell pass to open the scoring in the third minute and then doubled his tally in first-half stoppage time after Byron Harrison had levelled from a 12th-minute free-kick.

Ball's strike partner Karl Hawley made it 3-1 in the 49th minute and, although Terry Gornell went solo to make it 3-2 in the 65th minute, Ball teed up winger Chapell to cap the Gulls' victory at the death.

Yates said: "We started the game poorly and to concede after two minutes was disappointing and then again in first-half stoppage time.

"Then we conceded a couple of minutes after half-time and it's effectively game over.

"We were poor today. There were too many mistakes, too many non-performances from players who performed last week against Oxford.

"If you come away from home and don't get performances from eight or nine players you lose and that happened to us today.

"We are not in a great run of form, granted, and the performance wasn't good enough. I have to correct it and stop the stupid mistakes. We'll work again.

"There is a reason for it, so we have to work at it and we will. We have to keep believing, change one or two personnel and find a winning blend. We came up short after two better performances at home.

"We want consistency, but we gifted them a goal and it's mistake after mistake at the moment.

"To concede in the 47th minute of the first half was not a good thing to happen at all.

"We have to work together, we have players coming back from injuries and we have to keep doing better than we have been."